Page 1 of After Tonight

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“Sex. God.”

Riley Ames perked up at the two words from the blond at the next table. Who wouldn’t? The other woman was talking to her friend, but that was eavesdrop-worthy stuff right there.

“The man should open a spa or a clinic or something.”

“A sex spa?” her friend asked with a laugh.

“I’m not kidding,” the first woman went on. “I have never felt as good as I did after that weekend with him. Relaxed, happy, beautiful, and completely spent. I smiled for days after that. And I didn’t get my vibrator out for over two weeks. It was that good.”

Okay, seriously? Riley was supposed to concentrate on her work with that conversation going on three feet away? She pivoted her computer and surreptitiously scooted her chair so that she could see the women better. She continued to study her laptop screen, pretending to be focused on her own work, but she was completely tuned in to the conversation now.

The blond was curvy and had half of the inventory at Sephora on her face. And, if she was from around here, then she’d gotten that Sephora online because there wasn’t a store for fifty miles, Riley noted as an aside. One more strike against Sapphire Falls.

Riley was all about makeup and the fun that could be had with a good palette of colors and some high-quality brushes. She easily spent an hour getting ready every morning herself. But she didn’t like to look like she spent an hour getting ready every morning. Less was more.

Sephora was the one who knew the Sex God. She was drinking red wine and wore a fitted black dress that was a little much for the Come Again, the only bar in Sapphire Falls. The dress code here went a little less lace and a lot more denim.

“And I didn’t care about Zach at all after that weekend,” she said. “I mean, this guy completely fucked him out of my system.”

Well, okay then.

“You were almost engaged to Zach,” her friend, a brunette with curls and more of a girl-next-door look, said.

“I know. That’s what I’m saying. No more booty calls for Zach. No more letting him walk all over me. I’m cured.”

Riley couldn’t help but be a bit impressed with that. Sex God for the win.

It wasn’t that she didn’t realize how sad it was to be completely into this conversation and intrigued by another person’s sex life. But she was in Sapphire Falls. Tiny, everything’s-always-the-same, everyone-knows-everyone Sapphire Falls. And she’d now been here for three months. Creepy or not, listening to this woman talk about an amazing weekend of sex was the most interesting conversation she’d had in a while.

She was living in her parents’ basement, sleeping ’til noon—or trying to at least, when her mom didn’t bang around the house at the crack of dawn—wearing sweatpants all day, eating chips by the bagful, and on her computer until three a.m. every morning. And yes, she was online gaming for several of those hours. Because the work she was doing was easy and, frankly, there wasn’t very much of it. Hence, the need to be living with her parents again at the age of twenty-six.

Basically, she had reverted back to her thirteen-year-old self. And her fourteen-year-old self. And fifteen. And…yeah, it was sad and pathetic. And she, unlike this very satisfied, over-her-ex woman, had not gone two weeks without her vibrator.

Okay, so that was a little different from her teenage self.

But otherwise, Riley was right back where she’d started—and she was about to go crazy.

Maybe she needed to meet this Sex God. She had to admit that she’d had some pretty good sex. She was no stranger to hot-sweaty-awesome weekends. But she wasn’t sure she’d been with anyone she would label a God. And definitely not in Sapphire Falls.

“So you need this guy,” Sephora said. “We’ll chat with him tonight, and then you can come back here on Friday, okay?”

Riley perked up at that. The Sex God would be here? Oh yeah, this was getting all kinds of interesting. And she was very grateful to these two women. She might have to buy their next round.

Riley settled back in her chair and pulled up a game of solitaire. No way was she leaving before she saw the God for herself, and no way could she concentrate on the new website design she was doing now.

“I don’t know,” the brunette said. “I’m not very good at flirting and stuff.”

Her friend laughed. “That’s part of the beauty. You don’t even have to be good at it. He’s good at it.”

“What’s he look like?” Curly asked.

Yeah, what’s he look like, Sephora?Riley asked in her head. She was beyond curious now.

“Tall, big hands.” Sephora laughed. “He’s got dark brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes and he’s built. He does a bunch of manual labor—yard work, construction, farm work—so he’s in great shape, has great abs, a fabulous ass, and arms…” She sighed happily.

Riley assumed she meant that he had great arm muscles because if he was doing yard work and farm work, having arms was pretty helpful, but she refrained from commenting. Or snorting out loud. She cracked herself up sometimes.

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